


Inevitable

by loves_books



Category: A-Team (2010), A-Team - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 10:55:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal reflects on the changes he sees in the relationship between BA and Face over the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inevitable

Looking back over all the years they have been together, Hannibal sometimes wonders why he never saw it sooner. It seems so obvious now, inevitable maybe, but of course hindsight can be a bitch, and both Face and BA are good at keeping their emotions hidden when they want to, unlike Murdock who so often wears his heart on his sleeve. Looking back, he wonders now just when it all began. He tries to pinpoint the moment the two men might have crossed the line from friendship to something more, but always draws a blank.

He can’t be sure, but he thinks it probably began after Sosa. He certainly never thought anything of how close the two men had become before the Ice Queen – or El Diablo, if you spoke to Murdock – stomped all over his Lieutenant’s heart. Afterwards, after they had nursed Face through the stages of grief – denial, anger, heavy drinking – after all the drama, Hannibal couldn’t help but notice the way Face seemed to stick closely to BA’s side. Though maybe, he realises now, he only noticed it because he was watching the kid so carefully, worried he would slip back into old habits.

He’s known Face for years, over a decade now, and he’s seen him in every kind of emotional state possible. He’s seen the young man go through a different woman each night – although now he can’t help but wonder how many nights were actually spent with men instead – seen him sleep his way around all the different bases they have stayed in, though Face has gotten better over the years, especially since the four of them have been together as a team. The self-styled Playboy of the team, Hannibal had fully expected Face to, at the very least, sleep with a dozen of Sosa’s friends in retaliation after she left him so abruptly.

But the expected shagathon never happened. Instead, Hannibal watched as Face threw himself into the team instead, letting off steam with Murdock, training with Hannibal as often as the Colonel would let him, and just hanging around with BA, whether in the workshop or by the campfire. Hannibal had just assumed, as he often had done, that Face didn’t want to talk, and BA’s quiet companionship was what he needed.

Over the years, Hannibal has made a careful study of the ways his team interact. The three boys together are as close as family – they are his family too, and for that he is grateful every day – but they are three very different men and have very different friendships. Murdock and Face play off each other instinctively, the conman tapping easily into whatever crazy fantasy their pilot is running with on any given day. They can be the most childish, frustrating pair when the mood takes them, but Hannibal has seen Face talk Murdock down from some of his worst moments, just as he has seen Murdock pull Face out of some of his rare moments of depression. They are good for each other, two halves of the same whole in so many ways.

BA and Murdock, well, that’s a whole other story. Anyone looking just at the obvious would assume they hate each other. The pilot seems to go out of his way to wind the mechanic up, and it isn’t exactly a secret that BA blames Murdock for his fear of flying, calling him ‘crazy fool’ and shouting to be left alone. But if you scratch the surface, Hannibal knows, the two men have a deep and mutual respect for each other. They’ll never admit it out loud, but the colonel has seen the smiles BA tries to hide at some of Murdock’s antics, and he’s seen the admiring looks Murdock throws at the bigger man when he thinks no one is looking. If any two of his boys were to have a ‘thing’, he would maybe have guessed it would be those two.

Face and BA were, at first, the two he had been most worried about. BA’s first impression of the Lieutenant wasn’t exactly good, Hannibal knows. Having some stranger carjack you in the middle of Mexico, even if he was a fellow Ranger, only to drive desperately to save another Ranger trapped in burning tyres with a noose around his neck, only to then witness this second Ranger making out in the back of his van with the wife of the bad guy… Yeah, not a good first impression to make. 

But somewhere after the mad flight with their new pilot – maybe somewhere around the time Face had hauled BA’s ass back into the chopper – the two men had just seemed to get over it. Hannibal had watched them carefully those first few missions, and sure enough they had butted heads a few times, both strong personalities, both not trusting by nature. He didn’t know if they had talked it out in private, though he doubts it – BA is a man of few words, while Face can speak around any given subject for hours without ever getting to the point – but they just seemed to settle into an easy, close friendship. Calm, Hannibal would have to say, and relaxed.

Looking back now, he wonders if it could have gone on for that long, since the very beginning. He remembers the moment in the van when the two men had first acknowledged each other, the casual yet serious way Face had thanked BA for saving his life, patting his shoulder, the way the big guy had covered the other man’s hand for a long moment. But then he remembers the fistfight over the shirt Face had ‘borrowed’ and never returned, and has to smile. No, he’s sure it started long after that.

Looking back now, there are many moments Hannibal can remember which should have made him wonder about exactly how close Face and BA were. But it wasn’t any of his business, not really, in fact it isn’t any of his business now. The team worked well together, and none of them – himself included – are exactly normal, so what did it matter if two of his boys were a little closer than might be considered normal by an outsider? If anything had been going on, for any or all of their eight years as a team, it had never impacted on a mission, never been a problem he had to worry about as their CO. Don’t ask, don’t tell, and Hannibal had never asked.

One time sticks out in his mind, about a year after the Sosa episode, when the team had finally been back in the states for a well-earned break after a string of difficult and dangerous missions in the Middle East. Murdock had already crashed out in bed, and Hannibal had been heading that way himself, the stress and exhaustion finally catching up with him. Hearing the tv still playing softly, he had stopped in the doorway to the living room, smiling at the scene that greeted him. Face and BA had fallen asleep together on the sofa, perfectly innocent, but there was something in the way they lay that had made Hannibal pause.

BA had been sleeping upright in one corner of the sofa, his feet propped up on the coffee table in front of him, while Face had curled up against his side, head tucked right up under the big man’s chin. They had all fallen asleep in stranger positions, had all teased each other at various times for unconsciously cuddling up to a team mate in their sleep, but there was something… BA’s head was tilted so his cheek was resting on Face’s hair, while the Lieutenant had splayed his hand out across BA’s flat stomach. With one big arm wrapped around Face’s shoulders, BA almost seemed to be hugging the other man into his side, and as Hannibal watched they both stirred slightly, Face stretching his hand further across to wrap around BA’s hip protectively. After a moment they had both settled again, a slight smile hovering on the mechanic’s lips, and Hannibal had quietly draped a blanked over the sleeping pair before turning off the television and heading upstairs to his own room, too tired to think about anything else that night.

There have been other moments, moments when Face chose to help BA in the garage with repairs rather than hang out with Murdock or Hannibal. At the time the Lieutenant had claimed he needed to brush up on his mechanical skills, which seemed perfectly plausible to the Colonel. Face was competent, of course, but his specialist talents lay in other directions, procurements and sharpshooting technically, forgery and scamming unofficially. Still, it was unlike the cleanliness-obsessed conman to voluntarily get covered in oil helping BA take care of whichever vehicle was his ‘baby’ that week, and Hannibal had wondered briefly if something else was going on, perhaps a falling out between Face and Murdock.

But Murdock had seemed to cope fine with the whole situation, not showing any obvious signs that he missed his best friend’s attention. The pilot was still crazy – and Hannibal wouldn’t have him any other way – but the longer he was with the team, the more stable he became. There were no new nightmares, no sulks, apart from the usual day-to-day outbursts they had all become used to. Of course, looking back now, Hannibal wonders if Murdock had figured everything out long before he did. It wouldn’t surprise him at all. The pilot has always been the most perceptive of them all, and he knows how to keep secrets. 

He didn’t even complain when Face started sharing a room or tent with BA nearly exclusively, rather than alternating with Hannibal or Murdock as he had always done. The colonel didn’t mind bunking with Murdock – life was certainly never boring with the younger man around, although the amount of sleep he now got varied drastically depending on how manic his pilot was at any given time – but he never quite believed the string of excuses Face came up with for why he and BA needed to share a room. After a time, it became the new normal, and none of them felt the need to question or to explain the rooming arrangements. 

BA, on the other hand, had been less obvious about his shifting affections, and even now Hannibal wonders if he would have noticed anything if he had been paying the same amount of attention to the corporal as he had been to his lieutenant. Perhaps there was less teasing in the way he called Face ‘pretty boy’. Perhaps he invited Face to help him in the workshop more often as the years went by. But those could have been a sign of deeper friendship, deeper understanding. They weren’t obvious tells.

But in the end it was BA, rather than Face, who showed Hannibal his growing suspicions were true. A mission gone wrong, a panicked scramble to get back to the chopper, Face with a knife still buried to the hilt in his right shoulder, blood soaking his vest and dripping to the ground. When they finally reached Murdock, Hannibal supporting almost all of his XO’s weight while BA provided covering fire, at the time the colonel had thought nothing of the fact that there were none of the usual complaints from his corporal about having to get in a chopper flown by ‘that crazy fool’. At the time he was too busy barking orders, for Murdock to fly as fast as he could, for Face to keep his eyes open, for BA to pass him more dressings. At the time he was too busy trying to pack bandages around the knife, trying to slow the blood flow as best he could, trying not to shift the blade. From the angle, and from the harsh gasps escaping Face’s bloody lips, he knew it had almost certainly punctured a lung. They didn’t have much time, and he certainly didn’t have time to deal with a panic attack when BA realised he was voluntarily flying.

When he finally spared a second to check on the big guy, he saw the terror and panic he had expected, but it was directed entirely at the man who lay between them on the floor of the chopper, struggling for breath, blue eyes barely open. BA had one hand wrapped tightly around Face’s, the other hand stroking gently through dirty curls. As Hannibal watched, the other man leaned closer to Face, lips near his ear. He couldn’t make out the words spoken, but he didn’t miss the slight smile that passed over Face’s lips before it was lost to a grimace and a bout of coughing. 

The rest of the flight was a blur, Face’s blood spreading across the floor of the chopper, BA never moving from his side, never letting go of his hand. Hannibal leaned all his weight onto the blood-soaked bandages, counting down the minutes until he could get the kid into the hands of the medics, resolutely trying not to listen as BA kept talking, kept Face awake. Once that would have been his job – too many times it had been Face lying injured, and it had always been Hannibal he reached for. Despite the grim situation, seeing the two of them together, watching as BA leaned his forehead against Face’s, the quickest press of their lips together, he finally saw for certain what they meant to each other, and it warmed his heart against the chill fear that they were losing their lieutenant. 

In the medical unit, following desperately behind Face’s stretcher, the kid surrounded by doctors, the team were stopped when they tried to follow him into the emergency room. Only one, they were told by a stern nurse, and usually Hannibal would have followed without hesitation, leaving BA and Murdock to hover outside. But this time, he took his corporal by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. “Take a deep breath, Bosco,” he told him.

“Boss?” BA looked confused, every muscle tense as he tried to follow Face. “I need to go, let me go in with him - ”

“You can, but take a deep breath first.” When the other man’s breathing just sped up more, his jaw clenching, Hannibal continued firmly, “He doesn’t need to see you panicking. You need to be calm and strong for him, just like you were on the chopper.” At BA’s nod, he waited a precious few seconds until he saw the required deep breaths. With a final squeeze he released those strong shoulders, nodding towards the doors. “Go. Tell him to keep fighting.”

BA was halfway through the doors before he paused, turning back slightly. “Colonel? I, we - ”

“Doesn’t matter, Corporal. I promise. Just take care of him.” And with a nod, the other man had gone to be with Face, to watch as the doctors tried to save his life.

Of course, Face had been as lucky as he always was. A week in medical, blood transfusions and antibiotics, but no permanent damage. Hannibal and Murdock hovered just as much as BA did that week, but with his new understanding the colonel couldn’t miss the way Face always reached for BA, pale hand wrapped tightly in darker hand. He didn’t bring up the subject with either of them – don’t ask don’t tell still applied, even if he felt he knew for sure – and neither of the men mentioned it to him. He left them alone as much as he could, pulling Murdock away when his activities exhausted the injured man, and didn’t miss BA’s nod of thanks, nor Face’s weak smile.

Things didn’t change much after that, not in terms of the team’s relationships. Once Face was released from medical, he and BA were no more obvious than they had been before the mission. Hannibal started to wonder how long things had been going on between his two boys, but as ever it didn’t impact on their efficiency so he didn’t worry about it too much. In a way, he knew he should have been more worried, especially about Face. All three boys on his team held a special place in his heart, but Hannibal had practically watched Face grow up. The two of them had been their own unit for so many years before Mexico and, while he wouldn’t quite go as far as saying Face was the son he’d never had, he certainly felt a little protective over the younger man, having pulled him out of enough dangerous situations, both physical and emotional, over the years. He knew Face had grown into a strong and brave man, but he also knew there was a fragile little boy beneath the bravado. 

Anti-fraternisation rules were in place for good reason after all, and he considered talking to the two men about the risks, not just to themselves and their careers but to the team as a whole. But the right moment never seemed to come up, and just a few weeks later the whole situation with the plates blew up around them and they were jailed for six months, followed by their breakout and everything that followed. None of them had time to do much except keep going, keep focussed, and Hannibal threw everything he had into keeping his boys free and alive. 

When the smoke finally began to clear and things began to settle, when they stopped running long enough to catch their breath, to catch up on what felt like weeks of missed sleep, something changed. Away from the army, away from the need to hide so completely, BA and Face relax their guard a fraction, and for the first time Hannibal walks in on them, locked in a passionate embrace in the kitchen of the beach house Face has scammed for the week. 

For the longest moment they don’t realise he is there, arms wrapped tightly around each other, lips locked together, BA bending Face backwards ever so slightly against the sideboard, and Hannibal gives them a minute before clearing his throat, folding his arms across his chest as he does so. They jerk apart in a heartbeat, Face pulling back so fast he actually stumbles over his own feet, and BA has to grab his arm to steady him. They both have the good sense to look guilty and apologetic at the same time, but before they can speak Hannibal gets in there first. “Living room. Now.”

Murdock is already there, playing some cartoonish video game, though he picks up on the atmosphere immediately when Hannibal walks in, closely followed by a silent BA and Face, and he flicks the screen to standby. The colonel takes a seat by the pilot, gesturing for the other two members of the team to sit on the opposite sofa, fighting the urge to smile at the matching look of panic on two very different faces, both as familiar to him as his own.

Face, typically, is the first to speak up. “Colonel, look, I’m sorry you had to - ”

“Relax, kid.” The lieutenant stutters to a stop, exchanging confused looks with BA. “I guess we should have had this conversation a while back.”

“Boss?” BA this time. 

“It’s not like I didn’t know about you two. You’ve been subtle, but I know you too well, especially you, Face.”

A small smile from the lieutenant at that, and then a giggle from Murdock, who adds, “Subtle but not all that subtle! Did ya get caught, boys?”

“Hannibal, Murdock, we… We never meant to hide anything, sir. We wanted to tell you, but…” Hannibal never gets tired of the rare moments when Face is lost for words. The conman runs one hand through his hair, messing up his already messy curls even more, but BA reaches over to take his free hand, holding it tightly while he meets his colonel’s gaze squarely.

“Sir, we’ve never put the unit at risk. We’ve been careful.” Anyone else would hear it as anger, but it’s only because Hannibal knows the big guy so well that he can pick up on the nerves in that deep voice. “We never meant no disrespect, Colonel, but you understand why we couldn’t say anything.”

“I know, I know. And I’ve never needed to say anything. You are both - ” he turns slightly to include Murdock as well, “ – You are all the most professional men I’ve ever worked with, and I’m proud to have you as my team, as my friends, and as my family.”

“Hannibal?” Face sounds completely confused now, bright blue eyes flashing with uncertainty. “Are you mad or not?”

“Mad?” He has to laugh a little at that. He’s never been the slightest bit mad at the situation, only ever wanting the best for all of his boys. “Templeton, Bosco, it isn’t any of my business, it never has been. Are you happy?” They both nod, stealing sideways glances at each other. “Are you safe?”

BA splutters at that, and Face pats him gently on the back as he answers for the pair of them. “Yes, Dad, we play safe.”

Murdock rolls around laughing at that comment, and Hannibal wishes he had a cigar. “Don’t ever call me that again, brat,” he warns, knowing he’s failed to keep the smile from his voice. “I guess we need some ground rules, since we’re all living together, but more than anything we just need to acknowledge the situation. You don’t need to hide from us, right Murdock?”

“Right, boss.” The pilot sits up straight, looking and serious as focussed as Hannibal has ever seen him. “No more hidin’, you two. You never needed to.”

Silence for a long moment as Face and BA just look at each other, matching smiles on their lips, still holding hands, then Murdock flicks his video game back on, and Hannibal heads back into the kitchen to get the coffee he really needs now. And they talk, and it’s not a big deal, and life goes on, as steadily as it can for four men on the run.

Except now BA and Face don’t hide their relationship, though they are far from obvious even now their secret is out. When the team sit to watch a movie, perhaps they sit a little closer together, and perhaps Face will tangle his long legs with BA’s, his head resting on the big guy’s shoulder. Maybe BA lets his hand linger a little longer on the other man’s back when they are working together. The occasional little kiss, just a brushing of lips really, when they clearly think they are all alone. And there are little looks and smiles, just for each other, which Hannibal can’t help but notice. They make him smile too, all the little things which tell him his two boys are in love. 

Nights are maybe a little noisier for a time, but Hannibal manages to avoid the difficult conversation by quite obviously slipping a pair of earplugs into the shopping basket Face is carrying. After his lieutenant gets over the hysterical laughing fit which practically leaves him rolling on the floor of the supermarket, Face sobers and apologises. The noise isn’t a problem again thankfully, and Hannibal considers that a job well done.

Life on the run can be difficult at times, but the team are still together, and the two youngest men have each other, and Hannibal can certainly live with that. In a world where little in his life is certain, BA and Face together seems like it was always meant to be, inevitable perhaps. And, while a tiny part of him wishes he could find someone to love as much as they love each other – and goodness only knows what Murdock thinks about the whole thing, though Hannibal doesn’t think BA will let the pilot get away with hiding condoms in all his belongings for too much longer – for now Hannibal finds he is content with their lot in life. 

Looking back over all the years they have been together, Hannibal sometimes wonders why he never saw it sooner, but it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. BA and Face are clearly happy together, clearly in love. As corny as it sounds, and as nice as pardons and freedom would be, maybe love really is all you need.


End file.
